


Hello, Duncan.

by Annabelle_Rivers



Category: My Teacher Is an Alien - Bruce Coville
Genre: Childhood Memories, Gen, mentions of past books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 11:02:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16785658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annabelle_Rivers/pseuds/Annabelle_Rivers
Summary: A brief moment in Duncan's life years after the alien adventures.





	Hello, Duncan.

“Hello, Duncan.”

Two words, said a with a smile, that instantly brought Duncan Dougal back to being a 13-year-old boy again.

_Hello, Duncan._

It made him remember standing in galley kitchen looking back at the image on a screen of a beautiful and kind red-haired woman smiling at him. It made him think back to seeing that same woman greet him several mornings in a row, only with her real, otherworldly face holding the warm smile before passing over the little pet she had given him who would slide up his arms to repeat those same words in his mind. 

It also made him recall when that greeting had been part of a goodbye. A reminder that the year's worth of adventure would have to end with him returning back to the home he never felt was really his home. 

He used to replay the sadness he had seen in her face when she said goodbye at last. The alien named Kreeblim who had turned from his home economics teacher in disguise to someone to fear to someone he had almost... almost... felt safe with. Then the time came for him to be taken back to Kennituck Falls and he knew he would never break away from the town again. Life as a Dougal had its ways of leaving scars- both physical and invisible.

_Hello, Duncan._

Those specific two words had brought back a flood of memories, all coming to him at once that it almost made him forget where he was. He wasn’t 13 and he wasn’t about to be whisked off on a mission to save the world.

He was regular ol’ Duncan Dougal, the same one who had just celebrated his 19th birthday by driving as far from Kennituck Falls as one full tank of gas would take him to see how far he would get before the guilt and heaviness of responsibility took him over again. Adventures were long over for him.

The words repeated again, this time spoken aloud by the customer in front of him. “Hello, Duncan.Your name is Duncan, yeah?”

Duncan reached up to rub the side of his nose before nervously returning her smile. He had to stick with the facts. After all, he was wearing a nametag, standing behind the counter of a franchised bookstore and she was a customer with a book to purchase in her hand. Nothing more. Nothing out of the ordinary.

“Hello, ma’am. Did you find everything okay today?”

And so Duncan moved on, chatting with that customer and then the next until the monotony of the day pushed back those memories that had come close to the surface again. There were no more adventures. No more aliens. No more strangely good mornings at a farmhouse table eating breakfast with a makeshift, temporary family.

Just customers to help. Nothing more.

**Author's Note:**

> This is still my favorite book series because as a kid, I related so much to Duncan. I've always wondered what 'returning to normal' would have been like for him. Thank you for reading.


End file.
